Will Sullivan (MSJ04) joined The White House as a Digital Service Expert within Executive Office of the President, contributing his expertise to the U.S. Digital Service. The U.S. Digital Service is an innovative agency committed to transforming government services through technology and design. By bringing top-tier digital talent into the public sector, the USDS works tirelessly to improve the delivery of essential services to the American people.
Brett Kurland was named an assistant dean at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication in December 2021.
As assistant dean, Kurland oversees the school’s 11 capstone professional immersion programs, Cronkite’s signature faculty-led, student-powered experiences in which students learn by doing. These hands-on experiences include daily news and sports operations, a strategic communications agency, a content creation studio, and an innovation and entrepreneurship lab. Kurland also leads training and onboarding for faculty associates, helping them learn everything from school policies to best practices in teaching.
He also helps lead the Cronkite School’s bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in sports journalism, including oversight and management of sports journalism curriculum, course design, hiring, training, and supervising faculty, and managing student award submissions.
Kurland, a professor of practice at Cronkite since 2014, is the lead instructor for Multimedia Journalism Skills, a foundational, intensive first-semester class for all Cronkite graduate students pursuing master’s degrees in mass communication, master’s degrees in investigative journalism and master’s degrees in sports journalism in which students learn how to write, capture and produce photo, video, audio, social, and web content.
In June 2023, David Plazas (MSJ, ’00) received the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Editorial Writing. Plazas, the Opinion and Engagement Director of The Tennessean, advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in a state whose lawmakers have been intent on restricting them. SPJ has granted this prize since 1932 to recognize excellence in journalism.
https://www.spj.org/sdxa22.asp
Daniel de Visé (MSJ90)
In the first half of this exhaustively researched, highly informative book, de Visé, the author of King of the Blues and Andy & Don, provides an in-depth profile of the upbringing and career arcs of the film’s stars: the immensely talented, overgrown child John Belushi, who needed constant stimulation and elicited among his friends and colleagues the need to protect; and the quieter, highly intelligent Dan Aykroyd. The author also describes the rivalry-rich, drug-fueled evolution of 1970s comedy in the forms of Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon, and Chicago’s Second City group, all of which laid the groundwork for the movie. Gleaned from primary research and interviews with Aykroyd and director John Landis, among others, the narrative details the relationship between Belushi and Aykroyd, the sincerity with which they immersed themselves in the blues to live out their fantasies of fronting a great band, and how they overcame accusations of cultural appropriation to revive and amplify the careers of talents such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Cab Calloway. The book is also the definitive scene-by-scene account of a film—ambitious and over budget, panned by most critics of the day—that endures as a well-written and directed comedy doubling as a loving homage to a uniquely American genre and its capital city. A complete portrait of a classic film and the zeitgeist of its era.
Arden Joy (BSJ16)
Abigail Meyer and Freya Jonsson can’t stand one another. But could their severe hatred be masking something else entirely? From the moment they locked eyes in high school, Abby and Freya have been at each other’s throats. Ten years later, when Abby and Freya cross paths again, their old rivalry doesn’t take more than a few minutes to begin anew. And now Naomi, Abby’s best friend, is falling for Freya’s producer and close pal, Will. Both women are thrilled to see their friends in a happy relationship – except they are now only a few degrees of separation from the person they claim to despise… and they can’t seem to avoid seeing one another. After their encounters repeatedly devolve into warfare, Abby and Freya’s friends decide their age-old rivalry can only mean one thing: true love. Will their friends bring them together? Or will Freya’s refusal to admit who she is keep them from discovering their underlying passion? “Keep This Off The Record” is a fun and fresh LGBTQIA+ story about the freedom to be who you are, even if that means falling for the person you hate.
Laurie Lawlor (BSJ75)
Inspiring, little-known story of two artists who changed each other’s lives and the course of musical history. Illustrated picture book for music enthusiasts age 6 and up.
BettyJoyce Nash (MSJ88)
On Boneyard Island, Georgia, where everyone’s weirdly kin, thirteen-year-old Lucille is marooned when her mother goes AWOL with an old flame, leaving Lucille with only her father’s ashes, two half-siblings, and Will, the misanthropic manager of the island’s only motel. The abandonment kills hope of Lucille’s promised snorkeling trip to the Florida Reef before ocean heat kills the coral, and illusions she’s harbored about her mother’s sanity. Everybody Here is Kin explores the lives of this sinking family, the island community, and fears of exposing wounds, old and new, when natural disaster forces them to trust, and depend on, strangers.
Rev. Barbara Ann Bolsen, 72, of Rogers Park formerly of Cincinnati, OH died after a long illness on August 16, 2023. She is survived by her loving brothers David (Kathy) and Bill (Bev); cherished nieces and nephews, Erin, Ken, Marti, Bill, and Lisa; many grand nieces and nephew; goddaughters Julia and Carla, and her beloved dogs Huckleberry (Huck) and Dandelion (Danny).
Barbara graduated from the School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1972. At the American Medical Association, she rose through the ranks from reporter to become the first woman to be named Editor of the award-winning American Medical News. In 1996, she left the AMA to pursue a divinity degree on a full time basis at Chicago Theological Seminary.
An ordained UCC minister, Barbara sought work that would engage her heart as well as her mind. In 1997 she joined The Night Ministry as one of the organization’s first Youth Outreach Workers. She helped launch weekly street outreach events for young people in Lakeview, often appearing on the nighttime streets in her clerical collar to earn the trust of unhoused youth, and was instrumental in establishing The Crib, an overnight emergency shelter for young adults. A tireless advocate for social justice, she was a member of a number of civic organizations, including the Lakeview Action Coalition (now ONE Northside). She also served as President of the Boards of Directors of the Community Renewal Society and the Blowitz-Ridgeway Foundation.
In 2020, after 23 years at The Night Ministry, Barbara retired as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement to pursue her interest in photography.
Throughout her life, Barbara traveled extensively, whether for personal pleasure, professional reasons, or while leading church youth groups on mission work in the United States and Central America. She sang in her church choir, officiated at many weddings, belonged to two book groups, and for several decades was an avid skier and sailer.
With humor, an uplifting spirit, and a generous heart, Barbara touched the lives of countless people who are better for having known her and who will mourn her loss.
Memorials in Barbara’s honor may be made to The Night Ministry or Chicago Theological Seminary (https://www.ctschicago.edu/).
https://www.chicagolandcremationoptions.com/obituary/barbara-bolsen
Casey Bukro (BSJ58, MSJ61)
Nuclear power once promised to be the solution to the world’s energy crisis, but that all changed in the late twentieth century after multiple high-profile accidents and meltdowns. Power plant workers, finding themselves the subject of public opposition, became leery of reporters. But one plant in Zion, Illinois, just forty miles north of Chicago, allowed unrestricted access to one journalist: the Chicago Tribune’s Casey Bukro, one of the first environment reporters in the country. Bukro spent two years inside the Zion nuclear plant, interviewing employees, witnessing high-risk maintenance procedures, and watching the radiation exposure counter on his own dosimeter tick up and up.
In Higher Power, Bukro’s reporting from the plant is prefaced by a compelling history of the city of Zion, including a tell-all of John Alexander Dowie, a nineteenth-century “faith healer” who founded Zion, and whose evangelism left a mark on the city well into the modern era, even as a new “higher” power—nuclear energy—moved into town.
With the acceleration of climate change, the questions and challenges surrounding nuclear power have never been more relevant. How did the promise of nuclear energy stumble? Should we try to address the mistakes made in the past? What part could nuclear power play in our energy future? Higher Power explores these questions and examines one American town’s attempts to build a better society as a bellwether for national policy and decision making
Daniel Alarcón is the recipient of the 2023 Cecilia Vaisman Award from Medill and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Alarcón is the executive producer of Radio Ambulante Studios, where he oversees a team of more than 30 producers, editors, reporters, fact-checkers and sound designers living across Latin America, as they produce two podcasts, Radio Ambulante and El hilo. There are more than 200 episodes of Radio Ambulante produced in more than 20 countries. Alarcón also writes about Latin America for The New Yorker and teaches at the Columbia Journalism School.
The Vaisman award honors an individual working in audio or video journalism who works every day to shed light on the various issues affecting Hispanic and Latinx communities inside and outside the United States and is an active member of the NAHJ. It is given jointly by NAJH and Medill and includes a $5,000 cash prize. The award is named for Medill faculty member Cecilia Vaisman who died in 2015.
“Daniel Alarcón has been at the forefront of groundbreaking storytelling for the Latinx community,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “He helped bring long-form narrative radio journalism to Latin America with the start of his Spanish language podcast, Radio Ambulante. I am honored to present him with the 2023 Cecilia Vaisman Award.”
Alarcón’s nomination was reviewed and selected by a jury of Medill and NAHJ representatives, including members of the NAHJ Chicago chapter. The award criteria was determined by the jury.
“I had the honor of meeting Cecilia, and in addition to being a wonderful journalist, she was kind and generous and committed to passing on her knowledge to others,” said Alarcón. “She was a great friend to Radio Ambulante in our early years, and to be recognized with an award given in her memory is a great honor.”
Alarcón’s journalism has covered a variety of topics, including the rise of the new nationalist left, the book piracy industry, and the emerging democracy inside Lurigancho, Lima’s most notorious prison. His work has been published in a variety of outlets, including The New Yorker, Harper’s, New York Times Magazine, Wired, Granta, McSweeney’s and The Believer. Alarcón has been published in the New Yorker for the past 20 years.
“I am thrilled to congratulate Daniel Alarcón on his well-deserved Cecilia Vaisman Award,” said NAHJ National President Yvette Cabrera. “Daniel is a brilliant writer and storyteller, and his work has had a profound impact on the way we understand Latin America. His ability to understand his audiences is truly a gift. I am grateful for his contributions to journalism, and I look forward to reading his work for many years to come. Congratulations Daniel!”
Alarcón has won several awards in journalism, including the 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, 2022 Maria Moors Cabot Award, and the 2022 Cabot Prize for Latin American Journalism.
Alarcón’s work will be highlighted during an award ceremony hosted by Medill on Monday, October 3, 5:30-6:30 CT, in partnership with NAHJ